LEXINGTON –  At an appearance today at Virginia Military Institute to receive the school’s public service award, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor chided America’s political leaders for not doing more  to establish more clear cut military rules of conduct for frontline soldiers and to set more specific guidelines and boundaries for interrogating prisoners detained in the war on terror.
“Today law and war seem inseparable,” O’Connor told a crowd of about 300 visitors, cadets and alumni at VMI. “But no one has yet written a book for the rules that apply when the Geneva Convention does not . . . And there’s been quite a bit of confusion about what rules apply, to whom and where.
“Congress has done surprisingly little so far to clarify U.S. policy toward prisoners in the war on terror,” she continued. “To this day there is ongoing criticism about whether certain interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, count as cruel and inhumane treatment.”
“It seems to me that we benefit if we have a clear set of rules to reaffirm our values as a nation,” O’Connor said.
The first woman associate Supreme Court justice, O’Connor was nominated for the high court in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan. As part of her more than 24 years as a court justice, she was part of a Supreme Court majority ruling in 1996 that led to women being admitted to VMI, formerly an all-male school.
Currently, she is the chancellor of the College of William and Mary and serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center, a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution located in Philadelphia.
The Harry F. Byrd Jr. Public Service Award was established by VMI in 2001 to honor a public official, either elected or appointed, who has made significant civic contributions. Sen. Byrd is a 1935 graduate of VMI who served in the Virginia State Senate and the United States Senate for a total of 35 years.